At the Start (At the End)
by orangeflavor
Summary: 'Why did you come here tonight, Jon' Maybe it was pointless to come in the first place. Maybe nothing changes. (Maybe everything changes.) - Jon and Sansa. What it means to remember.


Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Author's Note: On the eve of the Battle for Winterfell. Fits as a missing scene during 8x02. Placed directly after the scene of Jon, Sam, and Edd on the ramparts of Winterfell, after the war council meeting. Season 8 compliant up to 8x02.

At the Start (At the End)

'_Why did you come here tonight, Jon?' Maybe it was pointless to come in the first place. Maybe nothing changes. (Maybe everything changes.)_ \- Jon and Sansa. What it means to remember.

"_Think back to where we started."_

It's a striking reminder, standing there atop the battlements of Winterfell, staring out into the dark and cold, his Black brothers beside him. Only, when Sam's words are meant to bring forth memories of Grenn and Pyp and Lord Commander Mormont, it's suddenly copper hair and frantic fingers at his back and the warm, hollow of her throat beneath his breath instead. It's the look in her eyes when she had stood trembling before the gates of Castle Black and run to him – breathless and aching.

Suddenly, it's Sansa at the start.

Jon's jaw clenches beneath the realization. He grips his gloved hands together, running a thumb over his knuckles, shrugging his cloak closer. "I'll find you later," he tells Sam and Edd, turning to leave without preamble. He stalks down the stairs, Ghost already trotting ahead of him, as though he knows. And why wouldn't he?

His feet have known this path for longer than he should be willing to admit, some part of him already yearning for her in the dark, and when he turns the corner to the hallway of her chambers, he finds Ghost is already waiting before her door, looking back at him expectantly, and Jon could laugh.

How blaringly apparent he'd been.

His hand stills just before knocking at her door though, and everything comes rushing back like a wave of sickness.

The threat he brought into their home – the unburnt queen warming his bed.

His hand curls back, retreating.

Before he can turn from the door, Ghost scratches at it, releasing a low, long whine. Jon shoots the direwolf a desperate look.

"Ghost?"

Her voice from beyond the door stills the breath in his chest and before he can question it, Jon clears his throat, answering "It's me."

There's a steady beat of silence where he simply stares at the door, and then her soft "Come in" broaches the quiet.

He enters swiftly, Ghost loping eagerly into the room and stopping at her lap, where she sits in the chair by the fire. Her smile is instant and singularly private when she sets her sewing aside to wind her hands into his fur, gliding over his ears and along his sides in fondness.

It makes Jon's chest tighten with something he can't name. "Sansa." It's more a croak that leaves him. He clears his throat, straightens his shoulders.

She glances up at him, her smile wilting only slightly, but it's enough to stir him forward. "He wanted to see you." He motions to Ghost with a shrug of his shoulders, an impish grin lighting his features.

Ghost throws a blank stare back at him, and Jon huffs, fingers curling and uncurling nervously. "Alright, boy, come on." He waves the direwolf back and Ghost trots over, passing him and stopping just outside the door, resuming his watch. Jon takes a moment to ponder the direwolf's quiet vigilance before he shuts the door, turning back to Sansa. He looks at the table by her side where she laid her sewing. His eyes catch sight of a familiar jerkin.

"What are you…?" He stops, licks his lips, something blooming between his ribs.

Sansa glances to the material, grabbing for it when she stands. She fingers the lining hesitantly, taking a deep breath. "You tore it the other day."

He keeps his eyes on the jerkin. "I hadn't even noticed."

"You hardly ever do," she says, swallowing thickly, before setting the jerkin aside.

He wonders then, how many shirts of his and how many breeches and how many boots has she mended? How much thread and how much time and how much tender care has she spent? He wears her touch daily and doesn't even notice. Doesn't recognize the work of her delicate hands until it is staring at him here, in the firelight, in the night before the end.

Jon rubs a hand over his mouth and sighs. "You needn't do that, Sansa." Because saying anything else seems an insult.

She lifts her chin, hands folding behind her back. "I wanted to."

Jon stays staring at her, the dim light of the fire casting shadows over their forms, and then Sansa sighs, her shoulders slumping with it as she turns to face the hearth.

"Is it so wrong? To want to be needed? To want to be useful?" Her words are a tight whisper, her body a rigid line.

Jon takes a tentative step toward her. "You _are_ needed, Sansa. You're the Lady of Winterfell."

She scoffs – lightly though, hardly demeaning of a lady. "Much good that will do me now."

Jon's brows bunch in confusion.

Sansa releases her hands from behind her back, pressing a worrying thumb into her opposite palm, the motion registering in Jon's mind with a stain of uneasy familiarity. "Tonight will belong to the soldiers, the warriors. And I will huddle with the other women and children in the safety of the crypts while my family bleeds for us. Again." Her hands are shaking now, her thumb arcing in nervous circles over her open palm.

Jon steps up beside her, a hand at her elbow. She turns at his light touch easily, as though it has always been thus between them. "You bled your fair share for the North already. We need you down there."

Her lips thin into a tight line but she doesn't answer him.

"You will protect our people, like you always have," he says, voice low and sure.

She levels him with an incredulous stare. She shakes her head, eyes flitting back to the fire. "I will never swing a sword like you or Arya. I will never host visions like Bran does. I am no help to you."

Jon huffs in aggravation, and the sound draws her attention once more. His hand falls from her elbow. "'Swinging a sword' didn't win us back Winterfell. It didn't unite the Northern houses, it didn't feed or clothe our people, it didn't keep this place going when I sailed south for allies. _You_ did that."

"What, with mending jerkins?" she asks scathingly, motioning at her forgotten work on the table.

"Yes," he nearly barks at her. Because he doesn't know how to tell her that she mends more than that when she puts her hand to the needle and works the thread. She mends more than split seams or houses or hearts. Sansa looks at the woes of her people and she doesn't turn away. She listens. She heeds. She learns. She leads.

Jon doesn't expect to last the night, not really. He's thought this for a long while. And maybe it's a selfish wish of his, because he doesn't know how to manage a throne-crazed dragon queen if they win the war against the dead. Some part of him has always expected to perish before he had to. Perhaps even to perish with Daenerys. After everything, it would be a just end. After everything, he's only known how to protect. And if keeping the North alive meant bringing the Targaryen conqueror to Winterfell, if it meant appeasing her want and granting her false affection, if it meant laying his pride at her feet like a proper traitor king – if it meant Sansa and Arya and Bran and more were not meat for the Night King (because some things are _not_ worse than death, Jon knows) – then he will give himself to the slaughter.

He will give himself to Daenerys Targaryen.

(What isn't already _hers,_ at least.)

"What, will I sing a hymm for the terrified ladies? Soothe them with false comfort?" She says it derisively, but her eyes have taken on a desperate sheen, lost in some memory he thinks he might never be privy to.

"Don't be silly, Sansa, there's more to it than – "

"'Silly'? I suppose it must sound silly to you, oh seasoned warrior."

Jon sighs, and he lets the anger sink back beneath his skin for a moment before speaking. He isn't angry with her, after all. With everything that's led them to this, to this conversation, to these words, to this war-worn Sansa he wants to bundle in his arms and keep to his chest – yes, angry with that.

Anger so familiar it sticks to the roof of his mouth with tart recollection.

"You'll direct the wounded," he begins. "You'll tend the children. You'll run the supply of arms and food if it turns into a long enough siege. You'll be our first and last contact when the walls break. You'll be the one who gets our people out if this all goes south." He's staring at her, demanding this of her, because he knows she will do it. He knows she _can_ do it. She's the Lady of Winterfell, and she knows what it means to bleed for the North better than any of them.

Sansa blinks at him, breathing hard, swallowing back whatever heated reply she might have had on her tongue in favor of exhaustion. It's writ all over her face, in the arc of her shoulders and the curve of her neck. She swings her gaze back to the fire. She flexes her hands. She licks her lips. "I suppose I… I needed something normal. Something… familiar." Her hands stay locked before her, her sewing still laying forgotten on the table behind them, lost in the shadows their figures cast from the fire. It's the closest thing to an apology he expects to get from her, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

But Jon nods, because he thinks he knows. It's in the hard hilt of Longclaw, and the sharp draw of a labored breath, and the subtle throb of aching muscles. Familiar. The fight.

_Familiar_.

He's just so tired of the familiar – the blood and the snow and the long, dark nights.

She laughs then, so soft and so jarring and so alien. Jon startles at the sound. Sansa covers her mouth with a hand, smothering the noise. "I'm sorry, I just…" And then another soft chuckle, but he can see the wetness at the corner of her eyes.

"Sansa." He reaches for her cheek before he even realizes it. But she shakes her head at his touch, swallowing back her tear-laced laugh, and his hand retreats to his side, his fingertips alight with her warmth still.

"It's so stupid. It's so _stupid_."

Jon turns fully to her, his hands lighting along her arms. "Sansa, please, what is it?"

She shakes with it, sniffing back her tremulous laugh. "Sometimes I still remember Father's promise to me."

Jon rubs up and down her arms, silently urging her to continue.

"Someone who's brave and gentle and strong," she recites, shaking her head, eyes downcast.

Jon doesn't know what to do but to listen. To just listen.

"I still want it, in some worn-away, ruined part of me. I still want it. That promise."

Jon blinks at her, hands stilling at her arms, and suddenly it makes sense. He swallows down his trepidation and takes a deep breath. "Sansa."

She meets his dark gaze with her own teary one.

"This isn't the end."

And how hypocritical, he thinks. Because he's already resigned to it himself. He's already laid that burden to rest. But the idea of Sansa – the very _thought_ – it doesn't… it could never be. This scenario doesn't include anything for her but survival. He's already bled for it, knelt for it, laid his crown at the dragon's feet for it, so – no. No, this isn't the end. Not for her. Never for her.

(Sansa is the start.)

"Sansa, listen to me."

And she does. She stills so suddenly and so thoroughly that he thinks she's stopped breathing entirely. But it's there – just barely. The slight rise of her chest. The subtle flare of her nostrils. The restrained flex of her throat when she stares at him expectantly.

His hands find their way to her face, cradling her cheeks, her hair bunching beneath his fingers and she sucks in a breath at the motion. His eyes flick to the draw of her mouth for only a moment, only a hesitant breath, and then they find hers again – needful and daring. "I promised to protect you. Always."

Sansa opens her mouth but nothing comes.

"Do you believe me?"

She stares at him dumbly, breath hitching.

"Do you believe me?" he asks again, this time harshly, this time with the reckless heat of something dark staining his words.

"_No one can protect me. No one can protect anyone."_

How the words haunt him at night.

"Yes," she breathes lowly, a quake of a whisper.

Jon releases her face, breathing heavily. His features softens at her exhale.

And then her fingers are bunching in his tunic, holding him to her. "Tell me we can win."

But this he cannot. He stares at her, mouth a thin line, and in the flicker of recognition that passes her eyes, he thinks he also sees terror. His hands fold over hers at his chest.

"Sansa, you have to do something for me."

She hasn't stopped staring at him, eyes wide and salt-tinged. She nods mutely.

"When the time comes, you need to leave. Flee south. Make your way to Riverrun."

Her hands release her hold of him instantly and he feels the loss keenly. "No," she says without pause, stepping back.

"Sansa."

"_No_."

He growls then, a barely held thrum in his chest, closing the distance between them once more.

She braces a hand to his chest to stop him and narrows her gaze at him. "I promised to never go South again. And I meant it. I will not leave these halls. Not ever." She pulls a deep breath, her lip trembling. "Please, do not make me." Her hand slips from his chest.

The break in her voice tears at him in ways he isn't ready for, and he shakes his head, rubbing a hand down his face as he sighs heavily. "If we can't hold them…"

"Then we can't hold them."

"Sansa," he snarls, pressing into her.

She stumbles back, surprised at the heat of his anger.

"I told you this isn't the end. The Starks will survive. _You_ will survive. Even if that means going South when the dead overrun us."

Sansa blinks at him, brows furrowing, and then she's pressing back, stepping into him, her furious breath pooling in the air between them. "And what am I without the North? What am I without my family? Without _you_?"

Jon rears back, throat dry.

"You say it like it is some easy thing to leave this all behind. And maybe it is – to _you_."

"What? That's not – Sansa, you _know_ I – "

"And how could I expect anything else? After all, I went south and became a captive, but _you_ – " She spits the word, harsh enough to brand his cheeks with the heat of her exhale, his own chest rising in indignation. "You went south and became a consort."

Jon's growl hits the air like a Northern wind, and he moves into her, hardly even noticing when she steps back at his closeness. He stalks her back against the desk until she stumbles to a stop, hands grasping behind her vaguely for the table top.

"Jon," she warns – breathless.

"You know what that was," he says lowly.

She stares back at him, eyes hard, licking her lips. "Do I?"

Jon narrows his eyes at her. "I did whatever I had to do to get her – her armies, her _dragons_ – here. And I'd do it again."

Sansa nearly flinches at that one, and he has the sense to feel ashamed. But not enough to stop.

"We can't do this without her, and I wouldn't…I _couldn't_ let it just… end like that."

"Do you love her?"

Jon's glare hardens as he sucks a sharp breath through his nose. "Sansa."

Her fingers curl tightly against the desk behind her. "You never answered me before."

He sighs, and it seems to take everything from him. "I didn't think I had to."

She swallows tightly, silent, chest heaving.

And suddenly Jon realizes how strangely beautiful Sansa is. Not in the far-away, untouchable sort of sense he once thought of when he remembered his lady sister from all those years ago – a child still, really, a delicate, sun-lit child with a face full of Southern yearning and hair the color of the Red Keep's walls.

No. Sansa is beautiful in the way her frost blue eyes meet his unblinkingly and the way she wears her Northern furs like a second skin and the way she mouths his name in equal fervor whether it's ire or affection.

Sansa is beautiful in the way she signs her letters and the way she pours her wine and the way she holds her hand out to catch the snow. In the way she fingers the tip of her needle and hook chain when Bran takes to his visions, and the way she teasingly cocks a brow toward Arya at Gendry's passing, and the way she lays the winter roses at Robb and Rickon's graves. The way she nuzzles Ghost and laughs at Tormund and stands with Brienne.

The way she fights for him. Even still. Even now.

But Sansa is also beautiful in the way that will never – _should_ never – be his.

Jon sighs, rubbing a hand over his mouth, suddenly aware of how very close he's standing to her. He takes a step back, throat tight with an unspoken ache. "It's going to be a long night, Sansa. You should… get some rest."

"Why did you come here tonight, Jon?"

He meets her gaze for a beat, finds her eyes intent and focused on his. The sheen of wetness is gone. He takes another step back and she follows – keeps the space between them barely a breath. His chest tightens inexplicably, his jaw working over words that never meet air.

"Why did you come here?" she repeats.

This time he doesn't retreat when she presses closer, her chest bracing to his, her fingers lighting along the fur of his cloak, her eyes shifting between his – never blinking, never wavering.

He suddenly thinks back to the war council meeting, Sam's words lingering in the air around them. _"That's what death is, isn't it? Forgetting. Being forgotten. If we forget where we've been, and what we've done, we're not men anymore. Just animals."_

And maybe it was pointless to come in the first place. Maybe nothing changes.

Except, it was Sansa at the start – _it was Sansa at the start_ – and he thinks maybe there's a reason for that.

(Maybe everything changes.)

"Jon?"

"Because I don't want to forget," he mutters on a swift exhale, his hands fisting with the effort to not drag her into him and kiss her wholly, unrepentantly.

Sansa's mouth parts in recognition of the words and he reaches up to hold her jaw, his thumb bracing against her bottom lip.

She stills beneath his touch, her fingers curling slightly in the fur at his collar.

He leans in, presses his thumb harder into her lip with a keen sort of need, trembling – standing there at the precipice, at the edge, just a fall away, just a spiral down, down, down and he could taste her, sink his teeth into that glorious wolf skin, drink her moans and swallow down that sweet, haunting aftertaste.

Her eyes never leave his when her tongue darts out to wet the pad of his thumb, shivering at his groan, and suddenly he isn't standing at the precipice anymore – he's tumbling down, flailing desperately, lost to her.

His hand pulls back from her lip to be replaced with his own mouth, his arms winding down to her waist and tugging her roughly to him. They stumble with the force of it back against the desk, his hips pinning hers, his teeth sinking into her lip when he takes her gasping mouth.

Her hands are in his hair, her back arching under his touch when his moan fills her mouth and nothing in the world matters but this –

But that she kisses him _back_.

"I don't want to forget," he pants against her lips when he pulls from her, and her hands are already tearing off his cloak, his fingers tangled in her skirts. "I don't want to forget this."

"Good. Because I won't let you." She gasps when his tongue finds her throat, his hands going under her thighs to heft her up onto the desk, toppling her ink well and scattering her scrolls, the dark pool of ink slowly staining her skirts but he's already back between her legs, sucking at her throat again, tugging at the confines of her dress.

When he lays her back against the hard wood of the desk he sees the dark swirl of ink at the edges of her copper hair – a great blackness not unlike the one he knew when he first left this world.

Because there was nothing on the other side. Not even memory.

And memory is what makes them men.

Jon kisses her, and kisses her, and remembers.

It was Sansa at the start.

(And it will be Sansa at the end.)


End file.
